Manchester Regiment

The Manchester Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army which was active from 1 July 1881 to 1 September 1958. It was first deployed to serve in the Anglo-Egyptian War in 1882, and it was based in British India from 1882 to 1897 (fighting on the North-West Frontier) and then fought in the Second Boer War from 1899 to 1902. On the outbreak of World War I, the Manchester Regiment landed in France, first fighting at the Battle of Mons. Nine of the regiment's battalions fought at the Battle of the Somme in 1916; in March 1918, the regiment again fought at the Somme during the German Spring Offensive, and the poet Wilfred Owen was killed while serving in the regiment during the Hundred Days Offensive. Other battalions of the regiment fought in the Gallipoli campaign of 1915 and in Palestine. In 1936, the regiment suppresed a Palestinian revolt, and it fought in the Battle of France in 1940 early in World War II. The regiment later participated in the Liberation of France in 1944, and other battalions fought at the Battle of Singapore in 1942 and in Burma from 1944 to 1945. After the war, the regiment participated in the occupation of Germany, and it was amalgamated into the King's Regiment in 1958.